Lauderdale To Up Ante For Yankees Complex

March 31, 1987|By JON MARCUS and JONATHAN SUSSKIND, Staff Writers

FORT LAUDERDALE -- City officials, hoping to convince New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner that he should keep the Yankees in Fort Lauderdale, will offer to build the team a ``state-of-the-art`` spring training complex.

Steinbrenner has agreed to hear more about the plans at a meeting on Thursday.

But the Yankees owner has said it is doubtful the team will stay after 1988, when its contract with the city runs out. He said he has an offer from another city, so far undisclosed, and from two private developers and Walt Disney World.

Each is trying to lure Steinbrenner`s minor league and spring training operations away from Fort Lauderdale, the Yankees` winter home since 1957. Tourism officials say the Yankees bring $5 million a year to the local economy.

In order to remain, the Yankees owner wants a new four-field complex for his minor league teams close to the existing Fort Lauderdale Stadium off Commercial Boulevard, city officials said.

Steinbrenner has said that whatever the city offers, ``it may not be enough.`` He was out of town on Monday and unavailable for further comment.

Fort Lauderdale City Manager Connie Hoffmann said on Monday that her staff is working out the finishing touches of a proposal that would offer Steinbrenner larger fields and more locker rooms and office space. She was not specific.

``We`re not going to release that until after the meeting with Steinbrenner,`` Hoffmann said. ``We don`t know what to expect at this point.``

``We don`t have a lot of the parts together now, and we don`t want to do our negotiating in the newspapers,`` said Jack Mathison, superintendent of special facilities, including the stadium. `There`s a million ways we can go.``

Steinbrenner ``asked for a state-of-the-art complex or the equivalent. We are trying to get him a state-of-the-art complex or the equivalent,`` said Mathison, who added that such a complex would be at or near the existing stadium.

Mathison said the project would be like one that opened last year at Port Charlotte for the Texas Rangers, formerly based in Pompano Beach. It would have four ballfields, offices and lockers for the major and minor league divisions.

Those details will be discussed at the closed-door meeting at the stadium on Thursday.

Broward Tourist Development Council representatives said they may contribute $500,000 to the cost of improving the Fort Lauderdale stadium, but county and local tourism officials have not been invited to the meeting.

The county pledged $680,000 last summer toward a $4 new million baseball stadium for Pompano Beach to lure the Cincinnati Reds for spring training.

The Reds would have replaced the Texas Rangers, who moved from Pompano in 1985. But the Reds didn`t come, and no new stadium was built.

That left the Yankees as the only team that trains in Broward in the spring.